simon k wrote:
low n blown wrote:
The costs depend largely on the quality of finish you are requiring. So much of the final finish is in the prep work, so if you don't know what you are doing with respect to prep, you are better off spending the extra to have the whole job done.
or if you do know what you're doing with the prep work, then you ought to be able to do the paint yourself too ?
I am only speaking from the experience of painting one car, but I would say the prep is not difficult, just very time consuming and requires a good attention to detail. With enough patience and research I would say anyone could prep a car for paint pretty well. A few problems for the average joe when it comes to applying finish coats:
-Not many people have a suitable compressor to deal with the volume of air required even for a basic HVLP gun
-If you have got a reasonable compressor, you probably don't have a suitable moisture trap setup for painting
-If you have both of the above, you probably don't have an ideal space for painting
-If you haven't painted before, it can be very difficult to get the gun setup perfectly and apply the correct amount of paint (not too dry, not too thick)
Although I ended up with a really nice finish there was a lot spent on the required hardware, wasted product and time wasted on correcting mistakes. If I were to do it all again, I would for sure prep the car at home myself and pay someone to do the shooting of the paint!
